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Rethinking the Rhetorical Situation
Citation Biesecker, Barbara. "Rethinking the Rhetorical Situation from Within the Thematic of Differance." Philosophy & Rhetoric, vol. 22, no. 2, 1989, pp. 110-130. Summary Introduction Biesecker illustrates the problems of Bitzer's rhetorical situation model to show that it is not as stable as it would seem to appear - such a notion "blinds us to the discourse's radically historical character" and "severely limits what we can say about discourse which seeks to persuade" - that is, if identity is fixed and able to be presumed, rhetoric can influence an audience but not to form new identities. (110-111) To ameliorate this problem, Biesecker turns to Derrida's thematic of differance, to show how deconstructionism can aid rhetorical theory, to suggest "that deconstruction is a way of reading that seeks to come to terms with the way in which the language of any given text signifies the complicated attempt to form a unity out of a division, thereby turning an ordinary condition of impossibility into a condition of possibility in order to posit its ostensive argument." (112) Here, the "rhetorical dimension" refers to both "the means by which an idea or argument is expressed and the initial formative intervention that ... makes possible the production of meaning." (112) The second part of the essay will use Derrida to argue for a conception of "audience as the effect of differance and not the realization of identities, therefore our conception of rhetorical events must allow the potential for the displacement and condensation of those provisional human identities." (112) Situation and Speaker Biesecker reads Bitzer's definition of rhetoric as "the name given to those utterances which serve as instruments for adjusting the environment in accordance to the interests of its inhabitants. ... In his view rhetorical discourse is an effect structure; its presence is determined by and takes its character from the situation that engenders it." (113) On the contrary, Vatz notes that the rhetor's response to a situation is based upon their interpretive reading of the situation, which is what gives more power over to the rhetor and makes their work a creative and interpretive act. But no matter which side critics take, Bitzer or Vatz, there is a "founding presumption of a casual relation between the constituent elements comprising the event as a whole. Either speaker or situation is posited as logically and temporally prior, one or the other is taken as origin." (114) To resolve this, Biesecker turns to Derrida, to argue that "if both situation and speaker can stand in for cause, 'if either cause of effect can occupy this position of origin, then origin is no longer originary; it loses its metaphysical privilege.'" (115) Rethinking Speaker and Situation from within the Thematic of Differance Section begins with a recap of Derrida's theory of dfferance, by way of Derrida's reading of Saussure, to show how differance operates not just between elements (signifier and signified) but within each element, the deferral of meaning and words that refer only to more words without ever reaching some originary reality. "Differance makes signification possible. Only to the extent that we are able to differ, as in spatial distinction or relation to an other, and to defer as in temporalizing or delay, are we able to produce anything." (117) "Derrida points out that it is in deciphering difference as differance that we begin to read, and it is in transforming this condition of impossibility into a condition of possibility that we are enabled to speak and write - intervene." (119) "Because the text is always and already given over to language in general, there is invariably a moment in the text 'which harbors the unbalancing of the equation, the slight of hand at the limit of a text which cannot be dismissed simply as a contradiction.' This textual knot or inadvertent 'slight of hand' marks the rhetoricity of the text and, in doing so, enables us to locate the unwitting and interested gesture that finessed differance in such a way that the writing could proceed." (121) Text and Audience Argument for this section - "If we supplement our deconstructive reading of rhetorical discourse by a reading of audience that proceeds from within the thematic of differance, it becomes possible for us to rethink the logic of rhetorical situation as articulation." (122) And for Biesecker, "audience" has appeared in the history of rhetoric as a relatively unproblematic and under-theorized category or concept. Traditionally in rhetoric, audience is a constraint that shapes the discourse and is the body "susceptible to persuasion and, ultimately, 'capable of serving as mediators of the change which the discourse functions to produce.'" (122) This conception of audience is founded on traditional humanistic conception of the subject - that is, a coherent, stable, and essential being that is the source of meaning. Rethinking Text and Audience from within the Thematic of Differance For Derrida, the subject (like writing and speech) is constituted by differance, is an effect of it rather than existing prior to or in a position of mastery over differance. "'The subject is constituted only in being divided from itself, in becoming space, in temporizing, in deferral.' Rather than marking a place of identity, the subject designates a noncoincidence, a 'complex and differential product' continuously open to change." (125, quoting Derrida) Rewriting the Logic of the Rhetorical Situation as Articulation The implications of deconstructing the subject for audience and rhetorical situation - enables a reading of rhetorical situation as event structured by a logic of articulation, not of influence. "If the subject is shifting and unstable (constituted in and by the play of differance), then the rhetorical event may be seen as an incident that produces and reproduces the identities of subjects and constructs and reconstructs linkages between them." -If the subject is decentered, the rhetorical event doesn't consolidate already-constituted identities; instead, it "marks the articulation of provisional identities and the construction of contingent relations that obtain between them. From within the thematic of differance we would see the rhetorical situation neither as an event that merely induces audiences to act one way or another nor as an incident that, in representing the interests of a particular collectivity, merely wrestles the probable within the realm of the actualizable. Rather, we would see the rhetorical situation as an event that makes possible the production of identities and social relations. That is to say, if rhetorical events are analysed from within the thematic of differance, it becomes possible to read discursive practices neither as rhetorics directed to preconstituted and known audiences nor as rhetorics 'in search of' objectively identifiable but yet undiscovered audiences. Differance obliges us to read rhetorical discourses as processes entailing the discursive production of audiences, and enables us to decipher rhetorical events as sites that make visible the historically articulated emergence of the category 'audience.'" (126) Reading through differance "resituates the rhetorical situation on a trajectory of becoming rather than Being." (127) Conclusion Biesecker ends by emphasizing that her argument's purpose is not to refute traditional rhetorical theories and critical practices, nor replace them with Derridean deconstruction. "I take deconstructive practice as one possible way to re-invigorate the field, not as the first step towards a renunciation of it."